Keynotes

The aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of mediation in the context
of current HCI research, with a special focus on the use of the concept to
inform and guide the design of interactive artifacts and environments. The
paper discusses the adoption of the mediational perspective on digital
technology in HCI and reflects on how the perspective has informed
design-oriented research in the field. It is concluded that there is a general
trend of moving beyond relatively basic notions of technology mediation toward
a more differentiated view of mediation as a complex, multi-dimensional
phenomenon. The paper outlines a set of dimensions, which characterize
technological mediation in relation to properties of mediational means,
subjects and objects of mediated activities, levels of mediation, dynamics of
mediation, and context. Design implications of adopting a view of technological
mediation as a multi-dimensional phenomenon are discussed.

Interactive three-dimensional techniques offer a new quality in the design
of user interfaces of computer applications. 3D user interfaces enable
intuitive presentation and manipulation of complex data and objects, in many
cases enhancing user perception and understanding of the presented information.
A critical element for building practical 3D applications is adequate 3D
content. However, designing high-quality interactive 3D synthetic content is a
complex and challenging task. This difficulty is one of the major obstacles
preventing widespread use of 3D techniques in many promising application
domains. In this presentation, a range of methods aiming at simplification of
the process of creating interactive 3D content are discussed.

Panel: Constructive Ergonomics, new challenges for the future

This text advocates a view of ergonomics and of its goal that sets
development as the target of ergonomics actions. Enabling environments are
defined as environments that do not have detrimental effects on individuals,
that take into account differences between them, and that allow individuals and
collectives to succeed and learn. Enabling organizations are defined as
organizations that facilitate "design-in-use" processes. An enabling
organization must not only tolerate, but also encourage such processes. The
objective of ergonomic actions is both to foster processes of development
throughout the ergonomic intervention, and to design work systems that promote
development. Enabling interventions integrate development as a means and as a
purpose.

This paper discusses some central issues in the concept of constructive
ergonomics. It does so by reflecting on experiences from ergonomics
intervention projects carried out in Denmark. Constructive ergonomics has a
huge potential as a new way to go for ergonomics research and practice.
However, many challenges are to be overcome. They relate among others to
education and training of ergonomist, and the cultural and institutional
setting of ergonomics in specific countries.

Learning in Work, Work in Learning: relations between Constructive
Ergonomics and the Learning Sciences

This short text is a commentary on Constructive Ergonomics from the point of
view of research in the Learning Sciences, whose aim is to establishing a joint
research agenda. This aim is motivated by the recent convergence between the
worlds of work and education/training, in practical and academic terms. The
main issues discussed are theories of development and learning and synergies
between methods in Design-Based Research and in Constructive Ergonomics. It is
concluded that these two fields have the same theoretically constructed object
of study -- personal, collective, organisational and societal development --
and that a potentially fruitful exchange could be carried out on the levels of
theories and methods for understanding development in education and
professional training.

Design methods and collaboration Tools

HCI Design Methods: where next? from user-centred to creative design and
beyond

This paper discusses the developments in HCI and new media design. HCI
design evolved into human-centred and creative approaches to the
conceptualising and building of user interfaces. De Haan [1] identified a
number of factors underlying the changing nature of HCI design in moving
towards ubiquitous computing and the Internet of Things. HCI and new media
design focussed on light-weight product as mashups of readily available
functions and services, and design became a prototyping, feature-driven and an
iterative/incremental activity, with a highly flexible and exploratory approach
to product design. Three factors describe the changes in design methodology:
increasing extension of user-centred design, increasingly higher level software
tools and frameworks, and the application of agile design and design
exploration. For each factor, a supporting practice-oriented design method is
discussed to illustrate the possible future developments in HCI design. In the
conclusion, the paper proposes several recommendations regarding the further
development of HCI design.

Blind Evaluation: Student's Experience of the Empathic Lead User Method

Many efforts on design research focuses on developing methods for design,
while little research has been done on how students experience method use. This
study looks at the experience of young design students using a specific design
method, the empathic lead user method. This method relies on inhibiting certain
senses in order to provide designers with alternative perspectives on user
needs. We introduce the theoretical background behind the use of this specific
method of design, and review results from related literature. In our study, the
group using the empathic lead user method (n=26), and a second control group
(n=23) without method restriction, performed the same assignment. We find that
for both groups there are no statistically significant differences between how
able, motivated or confident they were with performing the assignment. In their
own assessment of the results, we found statistically significant differences
between student's evaluation of how innovative they thought their results were,
but for the factors effort and satisfaction, both groups gave similar
self-assessments. We discuss the results and present areas for future work.

This paper explores the extent to which existing online collaboration tools
support the demands encountered during the early stages of the creative design
process. Results from a web survey among design communities and the interviews
with 9 designers suggest that Facebook is the most used platform to collaborate
with other designers. A qualitative analysis of the data collected reveals that
existing tools do not properly support the social processes that define the
design process. Furthermore, the design process is affected by the huge amount
of information and the inability to filter out and connect the different
information provided by the collection of tools. We conclude with a discussion
of the results and challenges for future collaboration tools.

Understanding people and Tasks

An ecological analysis of task subgoals during a simulated medical emergency

Whereas classical task analysis methods consider task goals and intermediary
task subgoals as formal nodes in graph formalism, cognitive work analysis has
brought a new dimension by considering task goals as ascribed in the concrete
work domain. Complementary to this latter approach, we suggest analysing task
subgoals as the satisfaction of constraints coming from equipment and work
space management. We present a classification of deficiencies in task
environment constraint satisfaction based on observations in a simulated
medical emergency setting.

Prototypes as Tools for Discovery: A Case Study on Multi-Touch UML Modeling

Prototypes are often seen as partially refined final products. A
complementary perspective on prototypes is suggested in the literature where
more emphasis is placed on the coevolution of artifacts, people and practices.
It encourages designers to adopt a more experimental stance. The paper presents
a small case study that applies this 'tool-for-discovery' perspective to the
early design of a multi-touch UML class editor. It is shown to be particularly
relevant for design situations in which current practices and the impact of
existing methods and tools on people's skills are not fully understood, even by
the practitioners themselves.

This contribution illustrates how software developers can be supported
systematically in user analysis and user centered design. Particularly it has
been explored how user models can be integrated in the entire development
process in a reasonable and gainful manner. For this purpose, a module for user
analysis within the Usability-Engineering-Repository (UsER) is presented. The
system is based on an innovative concept of gradual user modeling with several
levels of abstraction that is guiding and simplifying the process of practical
user modeling. The design of the module was validated with the aid of formative
expert evaluation and the realized application was evaluated summatively.

The present paper deals with a teaching method aiming at overcoming the
difficulties of students for conceptual or abstract thinking within a course of
User Centred Design. Following the hermeneutic approach a series of small in
class exercises have been planned. In those exercises students are urged to
brainstorm from early on with all levels of solution representations -- even
detailed ones --, and then try to elevate these to higher levels of abstraction
by questioning them through a peer critique process. The tutor all along that
process facilitates several iterations between the conceptual and the detailed
design solutions. Our experience has shown that when engaging in the above
process, students become more aware of the value of the conceptual design, and
are gradually developing a better understanding of it.

Despite robust quality control procedures, labelling errors on fresh produce
are estimated to cost the UK supermarket industry approximately
£50million pounds per year in product recalls and wastage. Changing the
format of the labels themselves is not a viable option. Instead, the challenge
is to change or guide human operatives' behaviour so that label printing errors
do not go undetected during quality control procedures. To this end, a
simulated label checking task was presented to naïve participants to
compare more systematic and strategic methods of label checking. Two conditions
in which behaviour was computer-led were compared with a control condition in
which checkers adopted their own idiosyncratic checking method. The data
indicate that the two computer-led approaches resulted in improved levels of
accuracy. Pushing label checkers towards a more systematic approach would
appear to be effective in reducing undetected label errors, and could lead
potentially to significant financial savings and reduced environmental wastage
in the fresh produce industry.

Learnings from Workplace User-Centered Design: the Case of a Media and
Communication Company

The paper presents a study of an industrial experience of user-centered
design of an office accommodation and use. In order to design the future office
of a large media company, several field studies, including observation of
users' activities and workshops with users were conducted. The design team was
composed of workplace consultants, an ergonomist, an architect and an office
planner. Our case study highlights that the project narrative acts as boundary
object in the design process. Our analysis raises issues on how to sustain the
sense-making processes over time and across participants.

On the Use of Personalization to Enhance Compliance in Experience Sampling

This paper argues that allowing personalization can increase respondent
adherence in experience sampling studies. We report a one week long field
experiment (N=36), which compared response rates when respondents select the
times at which they are prompted to report in an experience sampling protocol
(experimental group), versus the situation where these times are selected by
the experimenter (control group). Results showed that participants who could
choose their time slots showed a significantly higher response rate than
participants who received the questions on preset time slots (p=0.002). There
was no difference in response rates for different times of the day. Social
influence, as permitted through the personalization process is offered as one
of the explanations for enhancing compliance to the experience sampling probes.
Future research needs to establish whether this or other practical explanations
regarding respondent convenience explain the increased adherence and whether
the found effect can be sustained for longer studies.

Understanding & Supporting Collaborative Activities

Sales and delivery process is one means to support customer's positive
(user) experience, facilitating an efficient process proceeding and good
customer-supplier relationship also after the process. We studied the role and
content of boundary objects by investigating them within the concrete framework
of sales and delivery process phases, each with objectives defined differently
for the contributing parties of supplier and customer. The process phases as
well as the objectives and boundary objects in each phase were identified by
interviewing professionals performing conceptual or field work in a company
selling machinery to process industry globally. Furthermore, boundary objects
are scrutinised from the perspective of categorisation created in this study.
As a result, the type of boundary objects which is expected to be designed the
best was found to be the one requiring development the most as well.

Joint Remembering in Co-Design: An Ethnographic Study of Functions and
Multimodal Processes

The aim of this paper is to provide empirical evidence that illustrates how
the interweaving of verbal, bodily, social and material resources supports
joint remembering of relevant aspects of co-design projects during group
interactions. Our data comes from an ethnographic study we conducted in a video
design studio in Barcelona. The analysis focuses on the role of questions
triggering the formation of multimodal remembering sequences (MRSs). This study
suggests that questions acting as reminders foster the formation of MRSs. MRSs
are supported by an on-the-fly integration and coordination of multiple
contextually relevant resources. Our preliminary findings are relevant for the
development of new design-rationale systems in HCI that consider such complex
dynamics.

Construction of an "activity sharing space" to improve healthcare safety

Preventive approaches in risk management assume that the first step is risk
analysis. However, an important basis for this work is the prior identification
of risks. Our critical analysis of the "Failure Mode and Effects Analysis"
method (FMEA) has shown that risk identification is not self-evident. Risk
identification is not intuitive especially when risks are not apparent, as in
Radiotherapy. We assume that the classical models are incomplete. In this way,
the first step for reflection groups is the identification of the risks. We
suggest changing both the composition of the classical reflection groups and
the object of reflection that standard methods propose. We also suggest
carrying out an experiment with multi-trade reflection groups. Participants
have to share the real work or their activities from the "particular situation"
of work -- defined later in the text -- in order to improve the treatment
safety.

Flexible Tool Support for Collaborative Design of Interactive Human-Machine
Systems

The Usability Engineering Repository (UsER) and its mobile frontend MUsER
compose a flexible, web-based platform to support collaboration in
User-Centered System Design. Modules for different stages of cognitive and
usability engineering are provided and can be applied as needed. Analysis and
design entities can be linked through hypermedia relationships. In this manner,
a semantic network emerges from analyzing the context of use through design up
to the summative evaluation of the product. Results can be presented in a
document with a linear structure and is suitable for purposes like formal
project deliverables or contracts. Heterogeneous and distributed design teams
can benefit from immediate data exchange, better awareness of co-workers'
activities and appropriate visualizations for different organizational roles
and expertise. Images of cognitive artifacts and other findings from user
research and field studies in mobile contexts can be documented and shared
among project members.

Comprehending Intelligent Systems

Video analysis tools can provide valuable datasets for a wide range of
applications, such as monitoring animal populations for ecology research, while
reducing human efforts for collecting information. Transferring such technology
to novel application domains implies exposing non-expert users to unfamiliar
datasets and technical concepts. Existing data analysis practices must adapt to
the new data characteristics and technical constraints. With such changes,
uncertainty is of major concern as it can yield misinterpretation of data, or
distrust and rejection of valid results. We present a study of an interactive
visualization of computer vision results and uncertainty. We evaluate the
correctness of users' interpretation of data, and their confidence in their
interpretation. We compare the impact of either data features (i.e., the true
level of uncertainty) or visualization features on user perception of
uncertainty. Visualization features had a similar impact on user responses than
the data uncertainty itself, thus biasing user awareness of uncertainty. We
conclude with the opportunities (intuitive navigation in complex unfamiliar
data) and limitations (poor extrapolation and memory loss) of our visualization
design which integrates simple graphs in coordinated multiple views. Our design
and insights contribute to other cases where non-experts need to familiarize
with novel datasets and explore their uncertainty.

Dynamic function allocation (between human agents or between human and
technical agents) is a crucial issue in complex sociotechnical systems,
particularly in changing or demanding situations. This issue has not yet been
explicitly addressed in the Cognitive Work Analysis framework. This paper
presents a conceptual and methodological proposal for designers that
supplements the existing CWA tools. The new tool is integrated into the Social
Organization and Cooperation Analysis (SOCA) stage. It formalizes different
kinds of associations between work functions and elementary work situations and
between resources and work functions. It enables the identification of
conflicts (impossible allocations) when examining a complex situation resulting
from the conjunction of several elementary situations. When conflicts are
resolved, it is possible to choose the best configuration among a set of
possible associations between resources and work functions. This proposal is
illustrated with the case study of an electric pedal-assist bike.

A Tool for Easing the Cognitive Analysis of Design Prototypes of Aircraft
Cockpit Instruments: The Human Efficiency Evaluator

Development and evaluation of dynamic and complex systems require new
techniques and tools to evaluate the risks of Human and Systems Error,
especially for safety critical systems. Established techniques like the
cognitive workload analysis that can be used to assess the individual perceived
operator workload for sets of tasks these are not widely used in industrial
development. That is, because cognitive analysis of dynamic systems depends on
complex architectures and simulations to evaluate workload over time, and is
still driven by proprietary notations for cognitive models that require
in-depth cognitive modeling skills and is currently only accessible to experts.
In this paper we present an extension to CogTool, the Human Efficiency
Evaluator (HEE) to ease the analysis of the impact of new instruments and new
display designs with respect to human operator workload and task execution
times. The tool is designed to make these cognitive analysis techniques
available to non-experts, such as system analysts and engineers. We explain the
cognitive modeling and analysis process supported by the HEE referring to an
aeronautics scenario presented earlier by Hutchins. The cognitive analysis
compares the task performance and workload of three generations of cockpit
instrument designs to support pilots' with the slats/flaps settings during an
aircraft approach with the current support in modern aircrafts and was
performed by using the HEE.

A Contextual Approach to Home Energy Management Systems Automation in Daily
Practices

This short paper considers how classical concepts and approaches of
cognitive ergonomics/engineering (e.g., automation, trust or control levels)
could both enhance Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) design and energy
efficiency, while requiring a specific reference to home and daily life
practices. We rely on initial results of a research, evaluating different
design principles of HEMS in real homes. Our results show that it is necessary
to enhance the quality of coupling between monitoring and control possibilities
not only with the characteristics of the human operators considered as natural
information processing systems, but also with their everyday practices in home
settings. This credits the perspectives of articulating and extending cognitive
ergonomics/engineering issues to contextual approach of household activities.

Team Dynamics

Online investment advisors, recommender systems in the finance domain, are
becoming more common as a low-cost alternative to human financial advisors.
However, little is known about how online investment advisors are perceived by
users with low financial expertise, who would arguably be the most vulnerable
target group. In a qualitative test, novice users with a low income were found
to distrust the advisory system and financial markets in general, to possess
too little financial literacy to be able to understand the system's advice, and
to feel unmotivated and pessimistic regarding the benefits of investing.

How Communication Modalities Can Impact Group Creativity in Multi-User
Virtual Environments

This study investigates the impact of communication modalities on creative
performance of groups engaged in a brainstorming activity within a Multi-User
Virtual Environment (MUVE). Prior studies are unclear about whether oral or
written communication is the most advantageous to support creative activities
within virtual teams and especially those who interact within MUVEs (Dennis &
Williams, 2003; Paulus, 2000). In our research, 66 students were asked to
perform a creative task in a MUVE, in groups of 3 people. The comparison of
their performance, according to the communication modalities, suggests that
oral communication triggers more numerous and original ideas.

The role of Technology in Design Applications

Towards Stakeholder-Centered Design of Open Systems: Learning from
Organizational Learning

Today's business requires stakeholders to get involved in organizing work
and developing organizational processes, ranging from product life cycle
management to cross-boundary networking of organizations. In that context
stakeholders continuously and iteratively need to address their business and
knowledge processing environment at the same time. When the business processing
environment is concerned, the adaption of work procedures in-use takes center
stage. Going beyond operation affects learning, and thus the knowledge
processing environment. Hereby, proposals to (fundamentally) change existing
work processes are handled. Each input needs to be formulated as knowledge
claim, before being investigated for taking decisions on modifying currently
implemented processes. The design of corresponding support technologies
requires highly flexible, since context-aware architectures. We introduce a
corresponding component framework for design support. It features
organizational development based on articulating and processing work-relevant
knowledge for changing affected business processes. As the framework is open to
different implementations versatile interactive solutions can be generated in
dynamically evolving settings.

The Potential of Technology in Facilitating Positive Stress Experiences

The positive side of stress, eustress, has remained an understudied area in
psychology, health technology and HCI. Based on 21 qualitative interviews with
entrepreneurs on their positive stress experiences, we aim at providing
implications for technology-supported service design. First, we shed light on
the current role of technology in experiencing positive stress in the everyday
work-related situations of entrepreneurs. Second, the potential of technology
is assessed by analysing entrepreneurs' mind-sets and the ways of working which
they perceive as enablers for eustress and which could be facilitated by novel
technological solutions. Our findings show that the potential of technology for
supporting eustress includes areas such as co-creation and collaboration,
planning and scheduling, togetherness and shared success, the means for mental
preparing and ways to recover.

Industrial maintenance is a complex and knowledge-intensive field.
Therefore, maintenance technicians need to have easy access to versatile and
situationally relevant knowledge. The aim of this paper is to increase the
understanding of maintenance technicians' interactions and knowledge sharing
with colleagues and technology during maintenance work. Three industrial
maintenance cases were studied using interviews and observation. As a result, a
model for knowledge sharing in maintenance work was developed. Based on the
model, it is easier to tackle challenges in knowledge gathering and sharing. In
addition, it supports the research and development of technologies that
contribute to knowledge sharing in the future.

A traffic light assistant on a smartphone is assessed in real traffic, with
an eye tracking system. In one experimental condition, the system showed
(intentionally) false information to the drivers to simulate a malfunction. The
glances for this condition showed similar gaze parameters, as a working system.
The subjective ratings of the test subjects after this malfunction dropped
significantly.
The gathered gaze data are compared to three former studies (two in a
driving simulator and another study in real road driving). Findings indicate,
that a driving simulator is a safe and reliable alternative to get some of the
glance data (e.g., glance durations to the smartphone) without driving in real
traffic.

Poster

Game of Stimuli: an Exploratory Tangible Interface Designed for Autism

In this paper we describe Game of Stimuli (GoS) an interactive tangible
interface designed for children and adolescents diagnosed with Autistic
Spectrum Disorder [1]. The system is designed to engage children in play
scenarios where the objective is to maintain the attention on a given task and
turn-taking while filtering irrelevant stimuli. Eventually, the resulting
prototype has been tested in Siena, Italy, at the Association for Autism --
"Piccolo Principe". The preliminary field trial allowed us to assess the
usability of the design and showed promising preliminary results from a
clinical point of view.

Robots can be used when performing non-invasive surgical operations. They
are operated by surgeons using remote controllers (e.g., control sticks;
buttons). However, these controllers cannot convey the haptic feedback (touch)
as with direct manipulation by one's hands. We tested whether peripheral visual
feedback in the form of a flickering ring in the circumference of the control
screen can to some extent substitute for haptic feedback. Participants had to
lead a stylus pen in a predefined track while maintaining certain height from
the stylus surface. In the experimental trials, changes in height were coupled
with changes in the frequency of flickering of the ring. Results showed that
participants who received the visual feedback performed the task better than
participants without such feedback. It appears then that frequency can be
transformed to other modalities like distance and may possibly be used to guide
surgeons when using robots for medical procedures.

The subject of this demo is a tool, under development, for training
undergraduate students in system design. The tool supports the requirement
elicitation and system specification phases of system design. The tool permits
specifications in natural languages, such that stakeholders not familiar with
computer programming and formal specifications may participate in the
development and validation of the requirements and the specifications. A GUI
may be produced from verbal specifications enabling think aloud evaluations of
the designed system. The tool is intended for undergraduate students who do not
have the time required for learning the use of feature rich industrial software
tools. Our tool has few features making it easy to learn and easy to use, which
should enable the students to invest most of their resources in the essence of
their exercises.

Introducing the RSDiary App for the Collection of Resilience Strategies

Drawing from the fields of human computer interaction (HCI) and resilience
engineering, researchers have begun to take an interest in the emerging topic
of cognitive resilience strategies. These comprise behavioural interventions
and tactics that people adopt to foresee and mitigate threats such as error,
and maintain performance. In order to validate conceptual frameworks resulting
from analysis of these resilience strategies, and as a development of a
previously undertaken traditional diary study, we have developed the RSDiary
app for collecting such strategies. In this poster-demo, we introduce the
notion of cognitive resilience strategies, present the RSDiary app, outline the
process that led to its inception, and discuss the potential contributions of
the tool itself, and of the data resulting from it.

Since a decade in ergonomics, comfort has been increasingly investigated
with a focus on its psychological dimensions, based on the idea that comfort is
an enjoyable, pleasant and relaxed psychological state felt by a person who is
interacting with its surroundings. In contrast, discomfort is a tense and
unpleasant state linked to negative emotions and sensations. We examine the
various factors related to psychological comfort and discomfort experienced by
users in different transport modes situations. From the literature we
identified the following sources of comfort/discomfort: social relationship,
safe/unsafe feeling, variable time control, attentional charge and possible
multiactivity, need for control and social image. Our research question is
twofold. On one hand, we want to specify situations of comfort/discomfort
experienced by users. On the other hand, we aim at developing projective
techniques to help users in anticipating the comfort/discomfort experience as
well as their adhesion and reticence to change towards innovative
ecological-friendly modes.